Timex Sinclair Users Group Mile High Chapter

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TIMEX SINCLAIR USERS GROUF
MILE HIGH CHAPTER

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C/O FRANK HOLLAND, 1423 5. PEARL ST.. DENVER CO 80210, 733-8103

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MILE HI TSUG maintains a sub-board on THE KING'S MARKET BBS.

1-303-665-6091, 8-1-NONE. Accessible thru PC-PURSUIT.

MENU SELECTIONS TD GET TO THE SUB-BOARD ARE:

(1) CONTENTS

(2) INTERESTS & USER GROUPS

(3) TIMEX-SINCLAIR

General messages for club members are addressed to "ALL",

RRR ER ERA RX EAES SARA ERE AA RA EAA RARER EERE RARE er
We seem to have acquired several new people with TS-1000s who

are very new to computing. Therefore s this seems a good time

to review a lot of the basics about the ZX-B1/TS-1000 machines.

So, this month*s newsletter is going to be devoted ENTIRELY to

these machines.

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A ECC LC MANN len

HELPFUL HINT #2:

If you want to learn machine code - or do ANY work involving
machine code, then get HOT-Z.

It is an assembler/disassembler/debugger that allows you to
work directly with the data that is in the ram. As one reviewer
commented, "HOT-Z allows you to walk on water".

Order it from any of the sources recommended.
HELPFUL HINT #3:

If you need a really good (i.e. it does a good job AND it is
easy to use) data-base program, then get PRO/FILE.

Order it from Tom Woods.

HELPFUL HINT #4:

The voltage regulator in the TS-1000 has a bad tendency to
overheat after a while. Carefully take the case apart (the
Screws are under the rubber feet) and drill several holes in the
top of the case to improve ventilation.

FOR ADD-ON KEYBOARDS: RMG ENTERPRISES is carrying 2068/1000
Cut & stick key labels. Vinyl, $2.50 per sheet / $6.00 for 3 /
$17.50 for 10. $0.25 P&H per sheet.

A SCRAM (static CMOS ram) board is available from Silicon
Mountain Computers and Tom Woods. It is similar to the old
HUNTER BOARD.

The same company is releasing SRAM HIXREZ EXTENDED BASIC
which will add 38 new commands and allow hi-rez BASIC commands
and 64 (count them) columns.

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REM GENERATOR

REM lines can be used to store machine code so that it can be
SAVEd/LOADed as part of a BASIC program. The only problem is
that you have to enter as many chars. in the REM line as the
number of bytes used in the MC. Not bad if it's a short routine
but a real bear if the code is several hundred bytes long. This
routine will generate a REM statement of any length, for any
line number.

Gince this program uses machine code that is stored in a REM
line, the first thing to do is create line 1, REM, 63 chars.

001 REM (63 chars)

010 FOR N=16514 TO 16576
030 INFUT A

040 PRINT A," ";

050 NEXT N

RUN and enter the following numbers:

205 35 15 42 10 64

229 205 216 9 43 237
75 50 64 3 3 197
3 3 3 3 205 158

9 193 209 35 35 114

Sor Lio 35 113 35 112

35 54 234 11 11 35

54 o 120 177 32 248

54 117 52 42 12 64

34 41 64 213 205 43

15 193 201
Check the numbers on the screen against the listing. If the
numbers are correct then change the program with the following
lines:
001 REM - (MC gibberish)
010 REM USE IN IMMEDIATE MODE
O20 REM (LINE #)
030 REM RAND (4 OF BYTES)
O40 REM LIST USR 16415 (32600)

SAVE the program at this point.

If you want to generate a line 81 REM you will have to move the
MC. Use this program to move it to high ram.

050 POKE 16388,88

060 POKE 16389,127

070 FOR N=i6514 TO 16576

080 POKE (N+16086),PEEK N

O90 NEXT N

Lines 50 & 60 reset RAMTOP to protect the MC.

Now, for the explanation. Say that you want line 32 to be a REM
statement with 100 bytes in it. Type the following, in
immediate mode, pressing ENTER after each:

32 (ENTER)
RAND 100 (ENTER?)
LIST USR 16514 (or 32600)

The routine will insert line 25 REM into the program and LIST
it.
WARNING: ALWAYS make sure that there is another line, with a
higher line number, with your generated REM - or the program
will crash. It has something to do with trying to list a MC REM
if it is the last line.

Some good sources - SEND FOR THEIR CATALOGS.

ZEBRA SYSTEMS, INC RMG ENTERPRISES
78-06 JAMAICA AVE. 1419 1/2 7th ST.
WOODHAVEN, NY OREGON CITY, OR
11421 97045

THOMAS B. WOODS THE JOHN OLIGER CO.
P.D. BOX 64 11601 WIDBEY DR.
JEFFERSON, NH CUMBERLAND, IN
03583 46229

WEYMIL CORP. AERCO

BOX 5904 BOX 18093
BELLINGHAM, WA AUSTIN, TX
98227-5904 78760

FRED NACHBAUR BYTE-BACK
SILICON MOUNTAIN COMPUTERS RT. 4, BOX 54
C-12, MTN. STN. GROUP BOX LEESVILLE, SC
NELSON, BC ViL SP1 29070

CANADA

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Reprinted from the newsletter of the Indiana TSUG by way of the
Vancouver newsletter.

Here is a short utility for the 1000/1500. It will tell you:
(1) Ram size (2) Program size (3) Display file size (4) Memory
used by variables (5) Spare memory. Access by GOSUB 9200.

Just tack it onto the end of your program and it will tell you
how much memory space you are using and how much is left.

9200 PRINT "RAM ":((PEEK 163884256XPEEK 16389)-16384)/1024; "K"

9205 PRINT "PROGRAM ";PEEK 16386*256XPEEK 16387-16509

9210 PRINT "DISPLAY ";PEEK 16400+256XPEEK 16401-PEEK 16376-
256XPEEK 16397

9220 PRINT "VARIABLES "¿PEEK 16404+256XPEEK 16405-PEEK 16400-
Z56XPEEK 16401 |

9240 PRINT "SPARE "ıPEEK 163864256XPEEK 16387-PEEK 16412-256%
PEEK 16413

9240 PAUSE 150: RETURN

p—--—-———————————————————————— — Anni ded

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Many of our new people are using their TS-1000s for data
sampling with the ZEBRA Analog to Digital converter.

There are several MC programs for doing hi-speed sampling but
there don’t seem to be any for lo-speed sampling, Say in the
range of once every several seconds.

Here is a very simple 8 byte MC routine that goes into a REM
line and can be easily used with a BASIC program.

Create an 8 byte REM line and POKE the following numbers into
the indicated locations:

16514, 219

16515, ©
16516. 6
15517, 127
16518, 16
16519, 254
16520, 79

16521, 201

The second number, which goes at loc 16515, is the port number.

The disassembly:
START IN A, (CN)
LD B, 7F
DELAY DJNZ, DELAY
LD C,A
RET

The IN A, (N) reads the indicated port and starts the a-d
conversion.

The LD B,7F and DJNZ is for the delay time necessary for the
ZAD to make a conversion. T
“When you do a MC call on the TS1000 such as PRINT USR 16514,
or LET. A c-HOR-t65t4, the: computer WITT“ return withtne data

that is in the accumulator (LD A,D). —

Sample BASIC program:

001 REM (gibberish)

010 DIM a(10)

020 FOR N=1 TO 10

030 LET A(N)= USR 16514

040 PAUSE (whatever you want)

050 NEXT N

This will place the data in as. I'm sure that you can figure
out a program to accomplish your needs.

Don’t forget that we have quite a collection of newsletters
from other clubs. They contain a lot of articles on homebrew
hardware and modifications. Contact me if you have any specific
questions.

Sample list: Voltage preregulatorsi Battery backups & portable
power suppliesi Circuits for composite video output; Tone
generators; 1/0s; Big keyboards; Add-on RAM/ROM for the 8-16k
area: And a lot more.

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X-TERME8O, The New T/S1000 Series Telecommunications Program
from Silicon Mountain Computers.

It is over 3 years since Timex pulled out of the computer
market and prior to that time many (if not most) of us Timex
users had switched to the T/S2068. The T/S2068 has had decent
terminal (and Communications) software for some time now. There
is SPECTERM-64 with its 64 columns and 1200 baud capability.
There is Mterm II, the first to offer file transfers. There is
also Z-TERM with its Mterm style menus and the 0S-64 for 64
columns. All of the above'use XMODEM protocol for error free
file transfers. Why then would anyone want another terminal
software package for the T/S1000? I suppose if you put that
question to Fred Nachbaur, he might say "because it’s there”.

Well it's there and here comes ZX-TERMX80, "A FULL-FEATURED
COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAM FOR THE ZXB1, TS1000, and TS1500" as it
is described on the cover page of the manual. Would you believe
40, 60 or 80 column display at the touch of a key? It's in
there! Would you believe three windows that are adjustable in
size or they can be removed for a normal (1 window) display?
It's in there! This software is a direct decendant of the
MINI-XMOD terminal program for the T/S1000 that has been around
for some time. The terminal portion of the program is MUCH
IMPROVED over its predecessor. No more inverse characters (in
place of LF and DEL) on the screen. The improvements don't stop
there, onscreen menus make this software easy to use. Those of
you with MINI-XMOD experience will find the steps for uploading
and downloading similar. Among other features of ZX-TERMXBO are
the redifined keyboard with UPPER/lowercase, full sized printer
support, transmit both programs and variables using Xmodem
protocol, and there is more. The same programs supports both the
Westridge 2050 and Byte-Back modems and it is self-relocatable.
This is truly a remarkable program.

The ZX-TERMX80 documentation is extensive and well written
and tells all. No secrets here, Fred has gone out of his way to
give you all of the information necessary to get the most out of
his software. There are just about 40 pages of usable info. I
had no problem getting the program up and running on a T/S1500
and a T/S 1000. There is info included which explains how to use
the software with your specific mass storage device. I
personally use a Compusa DOS on my T/S1000 setup and I wasn’t
able to get the Compusa and ZX-TERMXBO to work harmoniously
together and I am awaiting additional info from Fred about that.
ZX-TERMX8O passed all other test with flying colors.

If there is a down side to this excellent software package,
here it comes. YOU MUST HAVE A NVM (non-volatile memory) such as
a Hunter Board or the new Silicon Mountain/ Larken release, the
SCRAM card to use ZX-TERMX8O. Also, no matter whether you use a
ZXB1, TS1000 or TS1500 (with 16K RAM onboard), YOU MUST HAVE
ADDITIONAL RAM (at least 16K). Send any technical questions to
Fred at the address given below. Retail price of the ZX-TERMX8O
software is $25.00 and the SCRAM card is $39.95. In my
opinion the ZX-TERMXBO communications program is GREAT. It does
what such a program is supposed to do, which is make it easy to
telecommunicate. IT DOES THIS WELL! For anyone using the T/S1000
online, this is certainly the way to go. I hope that there are
enough T/S1000 aficionados left to truly make use of and
appreciate this product. BY: Ed Grey

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From the Feb. ZX-APPEAL: By Glenn Read.

There is a large quantity of software available for the
ZX-81/TS100 but it is not often that software changes to the 8k
ROM itself are made available.

Thomas J. Bent has done exactly that with his 8k ROM upgrade
of the Sinclair operating system.

The upgrade consists of a new 8k ROM and a thorough
documentation package. Changes in the new ROM are catagorized
in two sections:-

1. New features.
2. Fixes to existing bugs.

Some of the more useful new features of the upgrade involve
speed increases such as a fast initialization on power-up that
gives a faster time to the ’K’ cursor even with just 16K RAM,
for 64K users there should be an impressive improvement.

The second speed chanoe is making all command line entries
automatically in fast mode, even if you were previously in slow
or display mode. As soon as a command line is entered it will
switch to fast.

Other improvements to existing functions speeds are a faster
scroll and changes made to the display system so when you do a
CLS , the screen is cleared without the painfully slow
collapsing of the display file.

There have been changes made to the tape load routine so if
there is a bad load, the machine is reset as if you had used
NEW. This is supposed to clear memory much more elegantly than
the existing system.

One very useful change enables you to create very large arrays
(no, not the radio telescope type).

Finally, there has been a number of changes to the character
display; the @,W,V,K,0, and O have all been tidied up and the
pound sign has been replaced with an apostrophe. This last
change I have found not so useful as I use my '81 for circuit
design and documentation, and it is an international standard to
designate Negated logic levels with the pound sign. The
mathematical/logical overscore being very difficult to print
unless you own a laser printer.

No more Bugs:-

Existing bugs that have been fixed are the LPRINT nuisance and
DIVIDE bugs - the nature of those bugs are covered in detail in
the documentation for those who are fortunate enough not to have
come across them.

The documentation gives listings of the machine code changes
made and each of the improvements are also fully covered.

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